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Art History, Gestalt and Nazism 135 Verstegen, Art History, Gestalt and Nazism 135 ART HISTORY, GESTALT AND NAZISM Ian Verstegen Gestalt Psychology had a wide diffusion through the twentieth century, but it also had an influence on adjacent disciplines. This paper is about the unexpected success of Gestalt Psychology in German art history, where it served as a model for the formal analysis of works of art. This paper is the first discussion of the extent of influence of Gestalt Psychology in art history, and it reveals hidden affinities between different schools that are otherwise obscure. The investigation undertaken here, however, is more than historical. An unusual situation greets us because some of the very histo- rians who embraced Gestaltism were also sympathetic to Nazism. This paper then becomes a reflection on the resonance of theoretical doctrines on political ideas. Gestalt Psychology was so interesting to historians because it provided tools to discuss the richness of visual forms that helped bolster earlier varieties of historical formalism descending from Alois RIEGL and Heinrich WÖLFFLIN. But formalism is not popular today. In a contemporary context, there seem to be two standard objec- tions to formalism as it relates to ideology. According to the first and less interesting objection, formalism is simply too neutral to such issues; as the arts reflect issues of struggle, identity, and power, the formalist is content to simply reflect on formal rela- tions. According to the second objection, the formalist is too confident of his methods; formalism merges into ‘expressionistic’ art history. One not only reflects on formal relations, but ‘essentializes’ them, and from the essential character of one object then wants to go on to essentialize meta-historical entities like national or racial schools. It is this latter issue that is most interesting for the appropriation of Gestalt psycho- logy for art history. The appropriation was undertaken by two schools, which I will be arguing are one loosely unified school, the school ofKoloritgeschichte [‘history of co- loring’] and Strukturforschung [‘structural research’]. Both were primarily German- language phenomena and flourished during the ‘twenties and ‘thirties in Germany. During the National Socialist era some of its main practitioners – Hans SEDLMAYR (1896-1986), Hans JANTZEN (1880-1967) and Wilhelm PINDER (1878-1947) – held important university posts under Nazism. They thus provide the interesting test cases of the utility of Gestalt psychology for totalitarian interests. As I shall document, these art historians were able to skillfully manipulate some of the gestalt doctrines in their ‘structural’ and ‘coloristic’ methodologies, thereby putting the theories to willful purposes. My investigation underscores the need to differentiate brands of Gestalt theory in historical discussions. The Koloritgeschichte school of art history emerged around 1935 when a small group of scholars began producing works on the history of coloring various periods of western art history. The most important early document is the book of Theodor HETZER (1892-1946), Tizian: Geschichte seiner Farbe (BERTHOLD, 1961). While ostensibly about Titian, the book also made generalizations about the development of Verstegen, Art History, Gestalt and Nazism 135 color in painting throughout the post-Medieval period. HETZER’s friend Kurt BADT (1890-1973) was the other historian of color, although his career lasted much longer (GOSEBRUCH & GROSS, 1961, pp. v-viii). While trained in Italian art, BADT’s works address later aspects of the coloring of western art history, especially the nine- teenth century. Other members of this school were Heinz Roosen-Runge (1912-1983; DITTMANN, 1983), Ernst STRAUSS (1901-1982; DITTMANN, 1981, 1982; NEU- GEBAUER, 1986) and Wolfgang SCHÖNE (1910-1989; SCHLINK & SPERLICH, 1986) whose Über das Licht in der Malerei of 1954 provided a synoptic statement of research on color for the next generation. The most important proponent of this school still active today is Lorenz DITT- MANN (1928), interestingly neither a student of SCHÖNE or STRAUSS but SEDL- MAYR. DITTMANN’s Farbgestaltung und Farbtheorie in der abendlandische Malerei: Eine Einführung (1987) is the most recent statement of the point of view of the Koloritgeschichte school. Recent interest in color by John GAGE and others has brought DITTMANN’s point of view under discussion, and has charged him with neglecting technical issues of the preservation of painted works in favor of an aesthe- ticist discourse. The other school has been called the school of Strukturforschung (SCHWEITZER, 1938/1963; NODELMAN, 1966; WOOD, 2000). A product of the so-called ‘Vienna School of Art History,’ descending from Alois RIEGL and Max DVORAK, these scholars began around the same time to write about the principles of artistic formation (Gestaltung) of the art of different periods through the method of ‘structural analysis’ (Strukturanalyse). Like the Koloritgeschichte school, numerous monographs were devoted to the structure of various monuments and works of art. The method of structural analysis is most closely associated with the name of Hans SEDLMAYR (SCHNEIDER, 1990; FIORE, 1985; DITTMANN, 1967, pp. 142-216). Important members of this school were SEDLMAYR’s younger colleague in Vienna, Otto PÄCHT (1902-1988; FÜRST, 1972, pp. 8-11; ALEXANDER, 1991; WOOD, 1999), as well as the archeologists Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg (1890-1958; KASCHNITZ, 1965, pp. 228-239; SEDLMAYR, 1959), Friedrich Matz (1890-1974), and Bernhard SCHWEITZER (1892-1966). The most important proponents of Sturkturforschung today are Hermann BAUER (1929-), a student of SEDLMAYR, and Christian NORBERG-SCHULZ (1927-), heavily influenced by SEDLMAYR. BAUER (1976) has not only continued to write monographs with the structural art historical methodology, but has also defended the structural point of view in his book Kunsthistorik. Unfortunately, he has had to live down the unfortunate favor his teacher SEDLMAYR found with Nazi authorities in the ‘thirties, which has invariable attached to his methods. The Unity of the Two Schools in their Maturity On the face of it, there is little connection between the two schools – indeed this is the first treatment of them together. The only scholar to make ostensible contributions to both fields is Hans SEDLMAYR who extremely problematically wrote of both 136 Gestalt Theory, Vol. 26 (2004), No. 2 Verstegen, Art History, Gestalt and Nazism 137 the ‘loss of the center’ (Verlust der Mitte) and the ‘death of light’ (Tod des Lichtes) in painting (SEDLMAYR, 1948/1958; 1965). Even so, if one looks deeper, one can find a number of consistencies. Indeed, part of my contribution will minimize the differences between the methodologies of Kurt BADT and Hans SEDLMAYR, as evidenced in their famous ‘Streit’ over the interpretation of Johannes Vermeer (VON MENGDEN, 1984). Superficially, historians from one school often cite the works of the other and contribute to the Festschriften of each other. More importantly, they both also rely in fundamental ways on Gestalt psychology. Without discussing Gestalt psy- chology, which I will save for a later section, I can best sketch this interdependence with a narrative timeline. The documents we have at our disposal are (1) a stream of dissertations and mono- graphs on the color or structure of a particular work of art, artist, or style/period; (2) methodological writings by structuralists which cite color historians, and vice versa, and Festschriften of structuralists which include contributions by color historians and vice versa; and (3) common methodological discussions of Gestalt psychology. Since I will discuss Gestalt psychology separately, I will here list the major monographs and dissertations in chronological order, along with their dedications or, in the case of dissertations, their advisor and, in addition the relevant Festschriften. The announcement of the maturity of at least the structural program was made in SEDLMAYR’s Die Architektur Borrominis of 1930 (SEDLMAYR, 1930/1973). SEDLMAYR had already sketched his approach to Borromini before, but in this mo- nograph he utilized the structural method to attempt, for example, to determine the original plan of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome. Characteristically, he also made interpretations of Borromini’s personality, ultimately concluding that he was borderline paranoiac. In the next edition, however, he regretted this conclusion but stood by his formal analyses. The same year (1935) Theodor HETZER’s great book, Tizian: Geschichte seiner Farbe, was published (HETZER, 1935/1969). As already mentioned, HETZER tre- ated not only Titian’s color, but made observations on all of western painting. For example, he noted a recurring tendency to construct color on a red-green (Giorgione) or on a blue-yellow axis. Following HETZER’s example the student Heinz ROOSEN- RUNGE wrote a monograph on an individual artist, Quentin Massys, Die Gestaltung der Farbe bei Quentin Matsys (ROOSEN-RUNGEN, 1940). ROOSEN-RUNGEN’s efforts are important for taking up a northern Renaissance painter for coloristic ana- lysis. This was to be important for SCHÖNE’s later pan-European review. ROOSEN- RUNGE, incidentally, would go on to produce one of the most exhaustive studies of Medieval book illumination, investigating chemistry, contemporary treatises, and formal analysis of color. In Germany SEDLMAYR began to teach and develop his ideas of the decline of art. It was after the war that SEDLMAYR had his famous
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